Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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"Your mighty band of heroes will never be defeated by a server crash."
Wizards ran these ads in comic books in the 2000s.
I have been playing for about four decades. I remember well when Wizards of the Coast bought out TSR. How many players at the time were worried this would mean the game would suffer as it became little more than just another scam. Which is what many players of D&D saw their collectible card game as.
Belonging now to Hasbro it is a publicly traded company. If it looks more profitable to abandon pen-and-paper altogether then that is what they will do.
Physical book sales are not doing well. Look at how many copies of Tasha's sold. Within no time. Then look at how many of each of the core books have sold. The new rules are underperforming unless you take into account digital sales.
What message do you reckon that sends to those at the top?
It shouldn't be that expensive. Megacorps artificially upped prices & cut manufacturing costs while providing less & less in the base package(This, however, ignores how TSR had Paizo deliver content in piecemeal via magazines).
THAT I can agree with.
But the whole "marketing is mind control" thing is VERY base, ESPECIALLY with TTRPGs.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
What does it have to do with race and class? Did you miss how the anniversary book suggests in its introductory text that the game 'used to be' a hobby only really enjoyed by middle class white kids?
Like I said: I wasn't in '83 when I started playing.
Salaries have not risen to contend with decades of inflation. And if that box was 20 dollars then and I could just afford it by having to sell things to friends of mine given my family had little to no money how do you figure a family with little to money today can afford 77?
It ain't the '80s no more. Things have become more expensive. And further out of reach of those who don't live in relative luxury.
People are capable of telling the market No. Doesn't excuse dishonest marketing.
You could run a poll here if you doubt what I say when I say most players these days own the rules.
Players don't even need to own the PHB. Not if a DM runs things like they used to be run.
Do you want an errata to say "Mostly"?
Is that what this is about?
Just demand the line be changed via errata, & suddenly you won't feel conspired specifically against.
Also, to make that $20...how much child labor were you exploited for?
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Exactly the same way back then... Budgeting and time or share with a friend...
Also by "luxury" most people ain't referencing cost but instead that it's not a necessary purchase that anyone has to make, it is a choice of the individual whether or not they spend their money on a game with for the most part 0 value outside of entertainment.
Using money I had made from selling to friends books I did not need.
Seems you missed this.
As I said before:
Poverty is a real thing. Minimizing how terrible it is by just telling people they can go without is grossly insensitive.
Why is it that capitalism and those who sing its praises are so monstrous except when it comes to Wizards of the Coast who seem to get wholly absolved just because they make something you like?
How about the costs of movie tickets?
Should theaters no longer have discounted tickets for pensioners and struggling students?
Because going to the movies has 'for the most part 0 value outside of entertainment.'
I never said it did. I, from experience, doubt the marketing manifests in reality outside of social media's ecosystems.
Yeah, I know how statistical distortion works. Nice try.
Do you honestly think people don't share materials to the degree they used to back in the day? Beyond & social media don't represent reality in totality.
Heaven forbid I personally did exactly that, & have also been with 3 groups that just had a G-ring binder full of printed copies made at the library because people can't afford the books.
I DO agree that prices SHOULD go down, & that that statement in the anniversary book were too absolute.
But this is not the thread for that.
People DO find a way to love the game & product, even through hardship & Hasbro glut, though they shouldn't HAVE to. That's the point.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Then in this case I'm grossly insensitive and I'll leave it there so the conversation as to why people either have love or hate.
You still had to give up something & act as an unpaid salesman for books.
The book companies should have paid you.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Please do not put words in my mouth to try and create a strawman you can argue against. I never mentioned class or race, that's entirely on you.
What I can say is that I currently run two separate kids clubs, the equavalent of the teenage you you mention. Not a single one of them has paid any money to join, any money to play. Thanks to D&D Beyond, and my totally independent decision to buy rules books and campaigns and share those, that's close to 20 kids that are playing D&D for free both with me and at home. As someone pointed out above, and you seem to have ignored, D&D was never free to play and the fact you didn't pay for the red box you were using doesn't change the fact someone somewhere paid for it.
D&D is probably more free than at any other time because in the 80s you couldn't go to Creative Commons and download 100s of pages of rules and the only way to borrow books back then was to physically lend them. Now I just email a link to the parents and 20 kids at once can borrow the one book I paid for
They obviously don't.
Because in the past at many tables the rules were seen as being for the DM's eyes only.
Throughout the entire lifecycle of 2nd. Edition one guy in my hometown owned a copy of even the PHB.
Today most players want to know the rules back to front so they can 'build' the most optimal [insert class and archetype]. And so they buy the PHB.
The hobby has seen such a reorientation when it comes to the role of the DM that it was inevitable most players would come to believe they had to have their own copy of the PHB.
Even Wizards of the Coast themselves have talked about how in the past DMs just tended to buy the books and how this wasn't the best sales model. They would rather people be making what are really unnecessary purchases.
This isn't the thread to demand mass de-inflation by every megacorporation & the world's governments, tho.
You're technically right that things cost too much, & that shrinkflation hit DND HARD. People shouldn't have to find ways to escape the hellhole.
But attributing blanket malice to the end users is too far.
And isn't something that's appropriate for this forum.
As far as I'm concerned...people can & do enjoy the game, sometimes in ways they shouldn't have to, social media/forums induce statistical distortion due to bias & emotion getting in the way of charts & graphs produced, & that line should be changed in the anniversary book because it's too absolutist while trying to be positive.
Not responding anymore.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
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ModeratorFolk, there has now been two pages of sniping back on forth on a single topic, that seems to be becoming disruptive rather than helpful. Remember to take a step back, and that you can take your time to type and formulate a reply (And also to check that you're not quoting too much of comments either directly above or with long reply chains). Focus on a topic, not a user.
The cost of D&D is relevant to a discussion on why folk are or aren't using the new rules, but remember to make sure you're linking back to the thread topic of the 2024 Core Rules and why people like or dislike them. If a particular topic looks like it might go on a tangent or take over a thread, it might be worth taking that discussion to a new thread, especially if it becomes a general discussion and not specifically linked back to the 2024 Core Rules.
Also remember to respect each other and be careful how you discuss this topic. No one should be shamed for wanting to be careful with money or shamed for wanting to spend money on their hobby. Advice on how to make the most of D&D on a budget (Such as using Official free rules and resources or legal means of content sharing, so on) is helpful, judgement is not- in either direction.
Posts that continue to be nonconstructive on this topic may be removed, and reminded/warned.
D&D Beyond ToS || D&D Beyond Support
Making strawman arguments is not a way to have a productive and constructive discussion. Obviously, I'm talking about a time after the internet was invented.
As early as the 2nd edition AD&D era, we had the community knocking out digital content and tools for ourselves, by 3rd edition with the OGL there was an insane growth in this area and it has for all other RPG's except this one continued.
You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Hell I was a creator during the 2nd-3rd edition era and I created and ran sites where you could create characters, manage campaigns, build monsters.. All this stuff was free (yes, AFTER the internet was invented) and still is free for every game out there.
I mean... you want to play Castles and Crusade... Here is the FREE players handbook. Want to play Pathfinder, here is Pathbuilder with every rule for every book ever published, character creation, customization, a free phone app HERE.
All RPG makers create an environment that is open to the community to create, contribute and support the game and everyone understands that this method promotes growth, unity and structure to the community which turns into sales for the company. Wizards of the Coast is the only company that I know of that puts up a paywall for pretty much everything. Everything they give away for free.. comes with a catch... Free rules? Sure... some of them... Create characters ... sure.. we give you 4, you pay for the rest.. etc.. etc..
That situation wasn't created by Wizards of the Coast, it was created by the tolerance of the community. The only reason we have a SRD and a community license for 5e is because Wizards didn't get away with canceling the OGL... A reflection of the control the community has. We can blame Wizards and to a degree, they are accountable as they are constantly attempting to do everything in their power to make D&D a micro-transaction hell, but they only get away with the stuff the community lets them and that's on the community not on them. They have the power to stop Wizards of the Coast, that's been proven.
So yeah, personally I don't really care. At this stage, in my eyes, D&D is effectively going down a path like a free-to-play microtransaction game. Yeah it's free to play, except all the time when it's not. My issue with it isn't even that they are doing it, it's that they are very clearly and obviously doing it and gaslighting everyone by pretending it's not actually happening. It's ridiculous and insulting and its bad for 2024 D&D because it all reflects on that game.
Which is sad, because again, I think 2024 is a great version of D&D. For a game to be great, but I still don't want to play it, because of how the community is treated by the company... That is a real thing I think is happening all over the place and this lack of "love" for D&D stems from that more than it does with any perceived problem with the game itself.
if the internet is telling the truth - there was no OGL/SRD before wotc acquired dnd
so for all the hate it gets for trying to change the OGL, personally am curious where is the love for them creating it to begin with, surely it helped grow the creator community to what it is today (for better or worse)
"They" in this context were Ryan Dancey, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, and Jonathan Tweet, all RPG legends, all victims of the WotC talent purge. The term OGL and SRD didn't exist before this, but arguably the concept of digital products wasn't fully realized until the late 90's. Like during the 1st and 2nd edition era there were some attempts at producing stand-alone digital products like character generators for example, but strictly speaking it wasn't until 3rd edition when the premise of open-sharing content kind of became a thing. Photocopied scans of PDF's being passed around the internet were about as close you got to getting D&D digitally before 3rd edition.
But you are absolutely right that it was Wizards of the Coast that created the OGL, it was and is, one of their greatest contributions to D&D upon which millions of creators still function to this day. I mean the entire OSR is built on the OGL. Wizards of the Coast had a lot of love for the creation of the OGL but like a spoiled brat, they woke up one day and decided they were going to take their ball and go home and try to sell us the ball for 39.99. I think a lot of the current hate for Wizards of the Coast and the resentment by the community comes from them feeling betrayed. It's like you created a great thing, why would you try to destroy it? It was just greed.
It was about the equivalent of them giving us a beautiful picture to hang on our walls, we had it in our house for decades and then one day, they came over and tried to re-claim it and then sell it back to us. Most D&D fans feel rightfully that it's not Wizard of the Coast that owns the OGL and D&D, the fans do and WotC has no right to it. Legally speaking of course that is not true, but legality and community sensibilities are not the same thing. If there is one truth in the world, if you want to be hated by the masses, act like a corporation.
One thing that is important to note too about D&D as a whole and TSR didn't understand this until it was far too late is that D&D isn't a game, its a series of memories immortalized by the books. There is a reason why the OSR exists and its not because old-school D&D was a better-designed game. It's because there is an ownership to the D&D experience. The books themselves are artifacts cherished and coveted by the fans of the game, almost like a high school yearbook, its a real object that acts as a placeholder for all the memories had playing the game.
DnDBeyond and digital data will never replace that human connection we have to the game. DnDBeyond will one day shutdown and all of those digital assets will disappear and the advancement of technology is never going to replace the substantial connection you have to objects like books.
This is why preservation of the tabletop tradition is such an important part of D&D and why Wizards of the Coasts intention to digitize and monetize and turn this role-playing experience into a forgettable technical execution means that they don't understand what this game is and why people play it. They are destroying the future of the game by stepping out from its core fundamentals and I'm a big believer that one day, very soon, people are going to start realizing that technology is not a replacement for the human experience and will start to reject it. We are almost there and you can see the exhaustion in people and the emptiness of the digital age.
Wizards of the Coast when they created 3rd edition seemed to really understand this, the OGL and the sharing of the responsibility of creating for D&D with the community was such a key to all of it and 5th edition, without question one of the best versions of the game ever should be treated like a crown prince. To see it being sold out as a digital product in the name of monetization... makes me sad. It means that, this generation of gamers, is not going to have the same experience as all of the past generations. D&D will be a video game, as forgettable and temporary as all video games are.